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Creativity

>I'd be interested to know how many of you have tried writing >novels.... Anyone else trying out their prose?

A few related observations:

1.) I find it is easier to do fiction and poetry now that
I'm a tech-writer than I did when I was an academic. As much
as I liked teaching, the effort I put into that seemed to tap
the same sources as writing did, and left me unable to write easily.
Now, when I switch at the end of the work day, I'm at least in writing
mode.

2.) Tech-writing is very good for adding precision to poetry and
fiction.

"In a perfect world, it occurs to me now, I would write this in
blood, not ink. One cannot lie, if one writes in blood. There
is too much responsibility: and the ghosts of those one has
killed will rise up and twist the pen down true lines, change
the written word to the unwritten as the red lines fade on
the page to brown."
--Neil Gaiman, "Mr Punch"